Tonight, when I returned home from Hacking Society, I realized via that the last time I had really eaten anything had been at the inflow kitchen with scott, and that had been early afternoon. My stomach helped to remind me.

After eating a few little bits of leftover popcorn my mom had made, I decided that I didn't want to take anything from her fridge, nor was I particularly in the mood to line the pockets of the pigs, especially after the conversation I had had scant hours earlier during which I talked about how, for several months after quitting my deli job, I felt guilty whenever I entered a grocery store, because I felt like my presence as a customer would add to the misery of the employees, and I didn't want to inflict that on anyone. (Especially not while rewarding the very system that profits from it.)

I thought about it, and decided that it was again time to shake myself out of my complacency. How can I possibly be ready to go out on the road to "face life's challenges" when I am barely able to feed myself here without using money or depending on relatives? This is my own hometown, where I know the area. It doesn't get any easier than this. The journey starts now. There is no tomorrow.

Yes, tonight I would go dumpstering. It would be another lessen, as well as an adventure. And if I was lucky, it would end on a full stomach.

One of the zines generously delivered to me recently contained some urban survival instructions written by a teenage girl who had learned how to become self-sufficient within the belly of the dead machine. Under the heading of "Food", she simply wrote. "I dunno, it's all over the place. Just pick something up and eat it."

Right. It would be like me giving instructions to a computer illiterate on how to install Linux by saying something like, "I dunno, there's Linux distros all over the place. Just grab one and install it."

But when I thought about it, I realized she had a point. This is something that, to become proficient, one must learn to the point of instinctive knowledge without needing step by step instruction. Guides that hand-hold you down to the last keystroke, while perhaps comforting at first, must be discarded in favor of figuring out the patterns and understanding them.

Since my luck with grocery stores around here has been dismal (evil compactors), I decided not to even bother trying any more of them tonight. Instead, it was time for a slightly different angle. Restaurants.

I drove to an area that I thought might be likely to yield something. 88th and Wadsworth. You locals know it. Restaurant chain central. Less than a block from where I used to live.

I parked discreetly in the Home Depot parking lot, and set out on foot with my backpack attached (in case I needed to carry anything); affixed to it words to serve as a constant reminder of the power of myth. "What Would Xena Do?"

I scouted around on foot, making a few passes before deciding on a course of action. On The Border, though it might have made a good dive, was not nearly quiet enough. The kitchen back door next to the dumpster was wide open, and I could see somebody inside working. No way to approach it discreetly enough for my satisfaction.

The King Buffet looked somewhat promising, at least in terms of being completely quiet and deserted. Their dumpster was enclosed behind a locked fence. The wall around it would not be insurmountable, but I wanted to see what else was available.

Chili's not only had the dumpster area locked off, but it was a compactor. Evil. Well, I've never really liked Chili's food anyway.

I looked at the Taco Bell across the street, and decided to only go there as a last resort.

I wandered back the other way, and noticed that the girls who had been talking outside the Black Eyed Pea were leaving. I surveyed the dumpster there, and found that it was not locked; only chained. Easy entry, but I made sure to be quiet. The kitchen door was open, and I could hear someone in the distance washing dishes.

I dug around a little bit, and didn't find much. Right near the top in the back, there were some ends off cabbage heads that had been cut off. I picked one up and contemplated it, along with the role I was playing. "I am a hungry person. I have no money. If I do not eat, I will die."

I took a bite from the end of the cabbage head. It didn't taste bad, so I took another. I was munching it down.

I had almost finished the edible portion when I heard footsteps coming out of the kitchen. There was no time to move without being detected. Voices could be heard. I saw them through the fence wires, and hoped that they would just keep walking by, but they did not. Two males, speaking to each other casually in Spanish. One of them opened the fence door, to reveal me. Standing there, right in front of the dumpster, facing him.

I remained calm, took the initiave, and spoke first. "Hola, como esta?" I looked him in the eye without moving.

He paused for a microsecend, smiled a bit, and responded. "Muy bien. Y tu?"

"Bien, bien." That more or less exhausted my conversational skills, but it was enough to set everyone at ease. I smiled, stepped aside to get out of his way, said hello to a couple of the other guys who had stepped out of the kitchen as I passed. (One of them spoke English to me, which was good.)

I stood around for a few more seconds, and then concluded it was time to make my exit. These guys were no threat to me, and I was no threat to them. They just wanted to get their work done, and I wanted to be out of there. So I was. Back out into the darkness.

But I was still hungry. I returned to the King Buffet, and made a couple of failed attempts to propel myself over the cinderblock wall. My arms, reaching above my head to pull, then push my body up, didn't quite have the strength they did back in my gymnastics days. On my third attempt, scraping and kicking, I made it up. I climbed down the other side with the aid of objects in the enclosure. Here, it was dark and quiet. Plenty of peace and privacy.

I reached into the dumpster and felt around. The smell of warm chicken wafted up from the garbage bags. My animal instincts piqued. Though I didn't want to make a mess, I found that the easiest way was to puncture one of the black bags.

When I did so, thick liquid instantly began to ooze out onto my hand. After most of the liquid had drained, I reached in through the hole. Slimy. Maybe I had chosen the wrong bag. But wait!

I could feel the pieces of meat between my fingers. Some were softer than others. I went for one of the firmer pieces, and pulled it out. It was a piece of chicken, with plenty of meat on it. (In fact, it was all meat, no bone.) I smelled it, and put it in my mouth. It hadn't been out here long. Still quite warm. It tasted good. I swallowed.

I found several more -- chicken shish kabob sticks with meat fully in tact on them. I ate them. Thinking about the slime my hands were wading through to get these made my more civilized half cringe. But the food in my mouth was not only edible, but quite tasty.

When it got to the point that my hands were finding more slime than meat, I decided to try my luck with one of the other bags. In it, I landed a few items that vegetarians might find more interesting. A piece of honeydew rind. Not much edible there. A little bit of watermelon. I only located one fairly small piece of it, but it was good. (Keep in mind that everything I was finding had to be done through touch. It was dark, and my hand was going beneath layers my eyes could see.)

I also found some full pieces of leaf lettuce; obviously they had been used only as garnishes. This type of lettuce was slightly bitter, but it definitely had a certain spice to it as well. Eating a couple of the fairly large leaves took me a while to chew.

Every now and then, a car would pass outside. When there weren't cars, I occassionaly would hear little rustling noises, but whenever I looked around through the fence, there was nobody.

Doing this gives me a new empathy not only for homeless people, but for animals. I thought of the racoons, who, finding their natural habitat destroyed and paved over, learn to make the best of what has been put in its place. Tonight, I was a racoon.

Finding scant little more in the vegetable department, and not really wanting to open more bags, I returned to the chicken bag, and found that when I hunted around, many more pieces could be found. I also found some soft, squarish things. Their texture made me nervous, but when I tested one in my mouth, I found that it was nothing more than a piece of well cooked potato. Seasoned pretty well, too. After that, every time I felt similar pieces beneath my fingers, I snatched them up eagerly.

I ate, not to the point of being stuffed, but until my hunger was reasonably satiated. At one point, I almost felt that I was going to vomit, not from any real sickness, but from putting a piece of chicken in my mouth that had some slime attached to it. My gag reflex was triggered. I decided this was a signal that it was time to conclude this meal.

I put my hand in one more time, knowing what I was after, and successfully fished out one last piece of savory potato. I was done here. I rearranged the bags to cover any evidence that a visitor had been here.

I wiped my soiled hands and wrists on the only thing I could find -- a damp mop propped against the wall. It did the job.

I easily climbed back out of the King Buffet dumpster area, and was walking back to my car in an instant. My stomach was fully satisfied, and I was proud of myself for having completed another little lesson in urban survival.

On this night, I had eaten like a king.